George Finch, 75, was sleeping in his recliner when he heard the sounds of glass breaking. Someone had broken a back window and was now entering his home. Finch then got his gun and encountered the interloper in his kitchen. "He stepped into the kitchen and he [the intruder] was right there. My dad told him to stop," Finch's daughter, Debbie Skaggs, recalls her father telling her. Finch told her the man "just kept coming" so he fired one shot, hitting the would-be thief in the leg. The wounded man, later identified by police as Kevin Richardson, made his escape through the same window he had entered, ran a short distance and collapsed. Richardson, who died shortly thereafter, had a history of theft, trespass and prostitution arrests. (The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, IN, 4/4/04)

A Cambridge. Minn., man awoke to the sound of breaking glass. He retrieved a shotgun and began checking rooms when he encountered three men who had entered his home. Two of the intruders fled, but the homeowner held the third man, later identified as Robert Hanson, at gunpoint while he awaited the arrival of police. The other two suspects were apprehended and the three were charged with aiding and abetting felony first-degree burglary. (Isanti County News, Cambridge, MN, 4/21/04)

A man approached the clezk at Forest Service Center in Lowell, Mass., and asked for change. When he approached the clerk a second time, he brandished a knife, pointed it at the clerk and said, "Don't do anything stupid, and give me all the money." The clerk responded by drawing a handgun and ordering the would-be bandit out of the store, reported Lowell Police Chief Bernard P. Nally. (Lowell Sun, Lowell, MA, 4/15/04)

Barbara Holland closed her used car lot for the day and drove home. She had checked to make sure the handgun she has carried since 1992 was loaded after a strange encounter at the car lot left her feeling uneasy. Holland pulled the car into the driveway and, as she entered her side door, Holland bent down to retrieve something she had dropped. Suddenly a man armed with a gun came rushing at her. Holland tried to slam her door on him, but the man shoved the door open and Holland fell back on her landing. Lying on her back, Holland snatched her pistol from its holster, ready to protect herself and her 15- year-old daughter who was home at the time. Her assailant's glare changed. "He looked surprised," she says. Holland recalls firing three times, but authorities later confirmed six shots. Police identified Holland's attacker, who died at the scene, as an ex-con named Clabe Hunt. (Detroit Free Press, Detroit, MI, 4/29/04)

Ronnie Breland and his son, Joshua, drove out to some property the family owned after a neighbor warned them that trespassers had been seen in the area. Breland drove a pickup truck, and his son rode beside him, armed with a 9 mm pistol. Breland discovered two men standing by a truck hidden in some trees. As the Brelands approached the trespassers, one man crawled deeper into the woods as the other raised his arm, holding a gun in his hand. Joshua Breland raised his gun in response. When his father yelled to the interloper, "Hit the ground or you're dead," the younger Breland said the man hit the dirt immediately, and the other man crawled back out of the woods on his belly. "I held them at gunpoint while my dad duct-taped their hands and feet," Joshua said. "Duct tape was all we had." Mobile County Sheriff's Department deputies picked up the two men, charging them with manufacturing methamphetamine and second- degree criminal trespass. (Mobile Register, Mobile, AL, 4/14/04)

Three armed men attempted to rob a jewelry store on East Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles. They confronted the storeowner demanding jewels and cash. When they began shooting, the owner returned fire, shooting one of the gunmen. The three fled the store, but the wounded robber collapsed in a nearby market and died. (Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, 4/7/04)

Four armed men wearing masks robbed the Central Mart in Pomona, Calif. One of the robbers fired several shots at the grocery's owner when the owner and his wife refused to open the store's safe. The owner fired back at the gunman, who limped along with his accomplices as they ran from the store. One of the robbers fired a second time at the owner when he went outside to check on his wife who was lying on the ground. The owner returned fire, but the gunman got into a blue van and drove off. Neither the storeowner nor his wife was injured in the incident. (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Ontario, CA, 4/15/04)

In a series of recent statements on America's frosty relationship with the United Nations, U.S. Sen. John Kerry has promised he will approach the U.N. as president with what he calls "appropriate humility and appropriate sensitivity" and will lay out "America's agenda on a global basis."

"I think you have to turn over to the United Nations genuine authority, ask them with a little humility to be involved... ." Although he's talking about U.S. presence in Iraq, the notion of a humbled America bowing with "humility" to U.N. authority is the key to understanding what a John, Kerry Presidency will bring.

Kerry's rule will include appropriate "humility" with respect to U.N. efforts to impose global gun control schemes on individual Americans-schemes thai were most forcefully rejected by President George W. Bush during the opening weeks of his new presidency. Of all the efforts by the Bush Administration to support the Second Amendment, none has been more important than slamming the door on U.N. plans to impose international gun controls on American soil.

A New York Times editorial-published July 11,2001-told the story far better than I can: "The Bush administration might as well have sent Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, to deliver its opening address to a United Nations conference on small arms earlier this week. In a shameless subordination of diplomacy to domestic political pandering, John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, told the gathering that Washington would not support an agreement to curb the international flow of illicit small arms if it infringed on the right of Americans to bear arms. "

There was no "humility" in Bolton's opening remarks to the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade of Small Arms and Light Weapons: "The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

This was the Bush doctrine on U.N. imposed gun control. What George W. Bush was telling the U.N. was as simple as it was all-American. Don't mess with America's sovereignty and, above all, don't tread on our individual freedom. Period.

Among the U.N. strictures shut down by the Bush doctrine was a universal firearms marking and tracing proposal that translated into a global firearms registry. In the works was a ban on private possession of small arms that had a military pedigree.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) - a participant in the U.N. conference - blasted the Bush pro-American gun-rights doctrine on two fronts: first with her twisted notions about the Second Amendment and by defining the real meaning of U.N. verbiage about "illicit small arms."

As the New York Times reported, Sen. Feinstein "said that she, and her constituents, would support a treaty that called for international tracing of weapons and openness in gun sales." That sounds like international registration to me.

So when Feinstein, or the U.M. small arms control crowd talk about "illicit arms," they always include legal guns - your guns, my guns. And they include all legal commerce.

The Washington Times reported in its coverage of the Bush Administration refusal to bow to UN. gun control, "in his statement yesterday on behalf of the European Union, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel stressed the need to rein in illicit weapons while they are still legal... . 'We need to take steps to reduce the number of weapons.'"

As for President Bush's embrace of the Second Amendment as a shield against U.N. intervention, the media was full of indignation, including the New York Times coverage quoting Feinstein saying, "She also challenged the frequently repealed assertions by American officials here that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed individuals the right to own guns. 'Mr. Bolton's position on the Second Amendment is in direct contradiction to decades of Supreme Court precedent....'"

That tracks with Sen. John Kerry's March 2004 crossed - fingers Senate Floor statement supporting Sen. Feinstein's effort to extend the Clinton gun ban.

"I believe in the right to bear arms as it has been interpreted in our country ..." (That translates to exactly what Feinstein claims about the right to keep and bear arms). In his next breath, Kerry mirrored the UN. internationalist view on military surplus or military look-a-like firearms, saying, "however ...There is no right to have access to the weapons of war in the streets of America...."

Combine his record-voting against the Second Amendment interests at home 51 times since he came to the Senate-with his sycophantic allegiance to all things U.N. and you get a clear picture that among his first acts as President would be to erase the Bush doctrine on UN. gun control.

Kerry said it all when he recently told NBC's "Meet the Press," "Within weeks of being inaugurated, I will return to the U-N. and I will literally, formally rejoin the community of nations and turn over a proud new chapter in America's relationship with the world."

What he will likely turn over is America's sovereignty and our individual firearm rights and freedom.

In stark contrast to Kerry's utter deference to the U.N., Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to an audience at Westminster College, declared unequivocally that under the Bush Administration: "the United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country." He received a standing ovation ... and rightly so.